


It's the wrong kind of place, to be thinking of you.

by be_a_rebel



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: F/M, Infidelity, M/M, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-07
Updated: 2011-06-07
Packaged: 2017-10-20 05:31:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/be_a_rebel/pseuds/be_a_rebel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eduardo knows, practically that he can’t live like this forever, oscillating between two points of brilliant light, between the two loves of his life. But somehow, he can’t help wishing he could.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's the wrong kind of place, to be thinking of you.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: This is for [info]elefante_locura , who won a fic of mine on [info]help_japan . The title is from Damien Rice's 9 Crimes.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a fictional (oh so fictional) account. I own nothing. Literally.

The thing is, Eduardo loves his wife. He loves her ridiculous half smirk that always gets laughs in pictures, he loves her restless hair, even when it ends up in his mouth on lazy and not-so-lazy mornings. He loves that she’s not skinny and doesn’t care. He loves the way she eats fries with mayonnaise and ketchup, fingers sticky as she cards her hands through his head. He loves her soft thighs, loves lying on them while they watch British shows, good and bad.

He loves her confidence, her faith in him, the fact that she never gets jealous when anyone flirts with him, he loves that she always turns to him when he walks into a room.

He loves the way her hand slides into his, quiet yet composed, whenever they’re together.

Unfortunately, none of that seems to stick when he meets Mark.

___

Eduardo meets Mark at a conference that is pointless and escapist and a nice waste of unfairly earned money.

Mark’s words, not his.

He likes him at once. Eduardo’s friends (business associates) think he’s crazy, because Mark Zuckerberg is a narcissistic asshole designed to make people cry.

Again, not his words.

Eduardo finds him funny. He’s abrasive but there doesn’t seem to be an underlying tone of malice, it’s as if Mark really cannot believe that people are that stupid and he’s hoping that by insulting them enough, he’ll persuade them to stop pretending to be dense and start using their brains.

Eduardo is nowhere near as smart as Mark but Mark talks to him anyway, Mark heads towards him when there’s a break, Mark sits with him during rambling talks about corporate structure, the recession and sexual harassment and they play X’s and O’s while the people around them stare disapprovingly.

Eduardo finds that around Mark, he really doesn’t care.

He tells Elena about Mark at night. He can hear the smile in her voice and loves that she doesn’t dismiss him, even if she doesn’t find Mark’s comments as funny as he does. She tells him that he should tell Mark to make a plan to visit them when the conference is done.

Somehow, that thought twists his stomach.

Usually he always talks to her for at least an hour during these things.

This time he hangs up in twenty minutes, an excuse about meeting friends for drinks leaving his mouth.

He feels as surprised as she sounds when she says good night.

\---

Nothing happens then. He hugs Mark outside their hotel and Mark is stiff against him, arms awkward on his sides.

He gets into his cab, rain mad on his heels and doesn’t look back.

Its three months before he sees Mark again.

He doesn’t think about him much during that time, buried under work, stolen moments with Elena, dinners with friends and family and quiet nights at home, his mouth against hers.

He knows that most men who wander claim that they’re sex lives were boring or they just weren’t getting enough.

It’s not like that with Elena. He still goes to work with marks on his neck and his assistant, Annie, smiles at him, bemused and touched every time she takes his coat.

They still have sex against the front door a few times a week because he’s thinking of her when he drives home at work and he texts her at intersections, ‘Can’t wait to be inside you’ and usually that’s enough to make her needy. He uses his mouth when that doesn’t do the trick, he’s great at giving head, every woman he’s slept with has said so.

She’s let him come on her, tie her up and tease her for hours (that’s more her kink then his but he does love making her beg), they’ve had sex with the windows open, in bathrooms at restaurants and dressing rooms in stores.

Even though the memory of going to his knees for the first time for Mark still makes him hard and turns his neck red, Eduardo knows it wasn’t about the sex. Not really.

___

Mark calls him on a Thursday and tells him to meet him at a place on the other end of the city for drinks at 8.

And then hangs up.

Eduardo can’t help laughing, even as Annie stares at him as if he’s grown a second head.

He reaches at seven minutes to eight and Mark is there already, scowling at his phone, one hand buried in a head of mad curls. He’s wearing flip flops in a room full of suits but he still stands out as if he’s saying fuck you to them all and sundry.

He eats all of Eduardo’s peanuts and most of his steak and Eduardo finds that he doesn’t mind.

They part in the street and Eduardo feels okay, normal and he can tell that everything is going to be alright.

Elena kisses him when he gets home and he crowds her against the kitchen counter, a little drunk and sleepy and very, very happy because she smells like the warm French perfume she always wears, the one she gets people to send her from other countries and he loves her so very much.

They have sex on the kitchen floor, warm and comfortable, almost fully dressed and she closes her eyes and trembles into his neck and he loves her more than anything in the world.

___

On Sunday, Eduardo has lunch with Mark in a little café three blocks from his home and Mark mocks the waitresses, the croissants, the tablecloths and the coffee. Eduardo wants to smack him but laughs instead, saying they could have gone home instead, Elena wants to meet him.

Mark doesn’t answer and he doesn’t look into Eduardo’s eyes.

___

Eduardo wishes that the first time it happened had been a spectacularly bad day, one involving problems at work, a car accident, spilt coffee on a new suit, a fight with Elena involving her inability to never remember to pick up the dry cleaning.

But it doesn’t go that way.

The first time Mark and Eduardo kiss, it’s a perfectly normal day. A good day even, because Eduardo finally managed to get a project he’s been trying to get a hold of for ages. He texts Mark and Mark tells him to come out for lunch.

Later, sometimes he wishes he hadn’t. A lot of the time, he’s really grateful he did.

The pasta is really bad and he ends up sharing Mark’s chicken while Mark rants at the waitress, the manager, and the cook, in that order.

It’s a clear day with a bit of wind and they stand outside the restaurant, watching a woman trying to fasten her screaming child into a car seat and it’s the least perfect moment ever but when he turns to grin at Mark, Mark is looking right at him and he’s not surprised, not even a little, when Mark leans in and kisses him, off center, a metaphor for their entire friendship.

Relationship.

He turns into the kiss without thought and his hands are in Mark’s curls pushing him into position because they’re on the precipice of something good, something amazing and if they can just fall into it, Eduardo knows everything will be okay.

Eduardo doesn’t breathe for what feels like several moments and he can’t remember after wards if it was one kiss or several, melting into each other. It’s all a haze.

___

He doesn’t answer Mark’s texts or his phone calls for a week. Mark was supposed to leave two days after The Day (as Eduardo calls it in his head) but he calls from his hotel, and even from a payphone.

Eduardo picks that one up and hangs up before Mark can finish, “Ed-------“.

He knows he’s being a bastard but he has a wife and he can’t lose her, won’t lose her. He acts like a fucking cliché all week, flowers and dinner at all the places she loves and she seems surprised but smiles at him because that’s what she believes in. Perfect trust.

He hates himself every second of the day. Every second he thinks of Mark and his mouth, every time he gets hard, every half fantasy he shoves out of his head. He doesn’t jerk off because he knows he’ll think about Mark.

He goes down on Elena thrice in two days and stops her from reciprocating, hoping the frustration will act as some kind of punishment.

\---

On Monday, he gets a text from Mark.

“Meet me at my hotel at 2. I’m leaving at six tonight. Please.”

He doesn’t mean to go. He plans a meeting for two o’clock, orders in from the Thai take away place across the street.

At one thirty he’s getting in a cab and he doesn’t remember how he got there.

\---

They kiss against Mark’s door and Mark’s head hits the wood, loud sound but Mark doesn’t complain, grips Eduardo’s hands as if he’ll leave. As if he could leave.

They trip over Eduardo’s scarf and stumble across the hotel room, clutching at each other, limbs entangled and Eduardo keeps his eyes shut.

He feels himself being shoved on to a bed and Mark is unbuttoning his pants and fuck, pulling down his fly and sucking him through his fucking underwear and Eduardo can’t pretend anymore, can’t keep his eyes shut because Mark isn’t Elena and Eduardo has been with only one person for seven fucking years and he wants to die of shame but he doesn’t think he’s going to stop.

His pants are around his knees and his briefs follow and Mark’s mouth is wrapped around his cock and he’s going to kill whoever taught Mark that, whoever has had Mark before because no one can have him again, not now and not ever.

He comes on the edge of a shout.

When he opens his eyes, Mark is straddling him, naked except for his shirt, eyes wide and mouth open, wet (with his come) and his cock is in his hand and he’s jerking off, movements fast and shaking. Eduardo thinks he should help but he doesn’t want to because then they’ll never stop.

Mark’s come spatters his stomach and Eduardo’s cock twitches and he wants to smack it, teach it a lesson.

They stare at each other and then suddenly they’re kissing again, hot and dirty and Eduardo rolls Mark around so that Mark’s on his back.

Mark doesn’t leave that night.

\---

Or the next.

They meet whenever Eduardo can sneak an hour during work.

He never meets Mark after work. That time is Elena’s and he can’t touch that, can’t take that away.

They never say her name.

Mark starts talking to his contacts in the city but he only works at night. They have an unspoken agreement that Mark’s days are Eduardo’s and Mark never argues, never presses.

Some nights Eduardo wants to cry with guilt because he’s never leaving his wife and Mark knows it but he’s still going to stick around, still rent a shitty little studio apartment in an out of the way neighborhood so that no one catches them together.

And some nights he wants to cry for Elena, who kisses him on the cheek and makes him lunches from time to time that he never eats.

He fucks Mark on a Wednesday and it isn’t Mark’s first time and this angers Eduardo, because the possessiveness hasn’t disappeared, despite the fact that Mark’s not sleeping with anyone else or despite the innate hypocrisy of his jealousy.

He still leaves bruises on Mark’s hips and bites Mark’s jaw while Mark sobs his name, voice scratchy and loud because Eduardo jerked off in his office bathroom before this so he could last longer and Mark must be sore now but he doesn’t complain, he never complains to Eduardo.

He pulls Mark close when they’re done and Mark hides his face in a pillow but Eduardo doesn’t let him go, just pulls him closer and kisses his shoulder and tells him, not for the first time, that he loves him.

They fall asleep and Eduardo walks into his office just as Annie is about to leave. She raises an eyebrow but makes no comment.

\---

In October, he takes Elena to her parent’s house for Thanksgiving. It’s a three day trip and Mark doesn’t text or call, their unspoken agreement in effect.

He dials Mark’s number seventeen times and drafts twenty three messages. He never presses send nor does he ever press call.

When he gets back, he fucks Mark on the floor of Mark’s apartment, on an ugly rug close to the front door.

Mark leaves a key to the apartment in Eduardo’s coat pocket. Eduardo doesn’t find it until a week has passed and it takes him ages to figure out what it unlocks.

They don’t talk about it but Eduardo starts letting himself in sometimes when work isn’t busy in the morning or when he doesn’t have an early meeting.

He brings Mark donuts and cheese and bread because Mark will live on junk food if anyone would let him.

Eduardo learns that Mark hates going out but figured that it was the only way of getting to see Eduardo. He learns that Mark will never take Elena’s name.

He learns that Mark will never ask for more than is given. Not where Eduardo is concerned.

He learns that Mark goes cold when he’s angry, that he won’t answer texts filled with apologies if Eduardo can’t come over, that he’ll never say I love you back, but always mean it in the way he buys Eduardo’s favourite newspaper and stocks his apartment with Eduardo’s favourite tea.

He learns that Mark can feel Elena every time he looks at Eduardo but he’ll never acknowledge it because he’s terrified of what will happen if he does.

He learns that Mark can change the locks and disappear for weeks the first time Eduardo says, “I can’t do this anymore,” because Mark doesn’t throw things or cry, he walks away. It’s not a fear of conflict, it’s a fear of the end of what they have.

Eduardo knows, practically, that he can’t live like this forever, oscillating between two points of brilliant light, between the two loves of his life.

But somehow, he can’t help wishing he could.

\---

Elena finds out on a Tuesday night. Correction, she probably knew before then but she confronts him on a Tuesday night.

She doesn’t cry or shout. She just seems surprised, shocked, a cup of tea in her small palms.

He tells her he loves her, she’s his wife, he’ll give Mark up.

She looks up at him with strangely dry eyes. She tells him that he’s not a cheater, he’s never been and the fact that he did this means that Mark means something to him.

“It means you’re in love with him.” At last, her voice breaks.

He’s crying now, begging her, telling her he loves her, always has, that he can’t manage without her, that she can’t leave him. He knows he’s got to be presenting a singularly unattractive picture, considering how scrunched up his face gets when he cries.

She stares at him as if she doesn’t know him.

She asks him to leave, to get a hotel room, for a few days while she figures things out.

He gets on his knees and clutches her thigh and begs and suddenly she starts to cry, gut-wrenching sobs, and moans into his hair and that’s what kills him, that he did that, that he cracked her open like this, even for Mark.

He holds her in his arms until the tears stop and then goes upstairs and packs a small bag.

When he’s walking out the door she tells him not to go to Mark.

On his way to a small motel he sends Mark a message, telling him that Elena knows and that he can’t speak to Mark or meet him while they figure things out.

‘They’ means Eduardo and Elena, and Mark will know it.

Eduardo would like to say he doesn’t know when things got so fucked up, but he does.

He spends the night drinking enough vodka to kill a small animal and wakes up on the bathroom floor.

\---

It’s the longest week of his life. On Wednesday he gets a small unsigned note in his office. It just says “I’m sorry.”

He wants to throw up but he has a meeting and he’s a professional and Elena was right, he’s never going to be able to forget Mark, not really.

Elena calls him on Friday and tells him to come over on Saturday night to talk.

\---

They stare at each other, sitting on opposite ends of the couch.

He still wants to kiss her, mouth the hollow between her breasts.

He really is a fucking bastard.

“I.” She stops, clenches her fists and takes a deep breath. He wants to take her hand but he can tell from her posture that she won’t let him. “I tried to think about leaving you. Having a life without you, moving on. Because what you did…I still can’t believe it. I don’t want to. I want to pretend it never happened but I can’t because the way you fucking smile when you say his name Eduardo. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. I didn’t want to.”

He tries to reach a hand across to her but she gets up and faces away from him, staring at the clock on the wall and she’s shaking and he knows his face is going to be wet in a few moments because she’s going to leave him, she can’t not, not after what he’s done.

“I can’t imagine life without you. But I know you’re never going to be able to truly forget him. You’ll try and you’ll think about him less for a while but eventually you’ll resent me because he means something to you that I don’t and you’ll keep seeing him in the places I am. And I’ll never stop thinking about it, I’ll never stop worrying about whether you’re thinking about him, whether you’re picturing him when you kiss me, when you’re…when you’re inside me. And I can’t live like that. I can’t be that woman, the one that’s suspicious every time her husband’s late from work, every time he’s not in the office when she calls or doesn’t pick his phone up.”

She’s kneeling on the floor in front of him now and they’re both crying and this is goodbye and Eduardo’s heart is breaking because she’s right, she’s always right and they’re clutching each other and kissing her still feels right, like it’s always felt and he knows that he’s lost her.

\---

He sends Mark a message. It’s abrupt. “She ended it. Give me some time.”

He sends a second message ten minutes later.

“Wait for me. Please.”

Mark does.

\---

They have lunch a few times while Eduardo tries to survive but it’s hard, almost impossible because Mark’s lost weight and when he looks at Eduardo he tries to hide his eager expectation and he never touches Eduardo and barely makes any sarcastic remarks.

Eduardo leaves feeling worse than ever because there isn’t any way to fix this, not without causing more pain. He can’t be what Mark wants, because he isn’t himself anymore.

___

On a quiet (lonely) Saturday night he gets a text. It simply says: “Come out.”

He frowns and steps out of his new apartment and makes his way out of his building.

Mark’s standing there, pitiful figure in the cold. Eduardo is glad he grabbed his coat.

“Come for a walk with me.”

Eduardo blinks. Mark hates the outdoors, resents nature and all her beauties.

He says yes anyway. He’s good at being selfish.

They let out little puffs of air and don’t talk and their hands brush and when Mark trips over a tree root in the park and says, “Fuck nature”, Eduardo smiles.


End file.
